January 28, 2017

"We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country, and love deeply our people."

Said Donald Trump, signing an executive order that suspends immigration into the United States from from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.

I'm reading the NYT story on the subject, which puts the quote above in the third paragraph and makes it clear that that Trump's "them" refers to "radical Islamic terrorists."

Outside of quotes, the NYT changes the term to "Islamist terrorists." (Based on this Public Editor piece from 2013, I believe the NYT uses the word "Islamist" for those who believe in fusing the religion with governmental power.)

The Times news reports includes 2 serious criticisms of Trump's order. First, the choice of countries:

Announcing his “extreme vetting” plan, the president invoked the specter of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Most of the 19 hijackers on the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa., were from Saudi Arabia. The rest were from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon. None of those countries are on Mr. Trump’s visa ban list.

Second, the charge that it's religious discrimination:

The International Rescue Committee called it “harmful and hasty.” The American Civil Liberties Union described it as a “euphemism for discriminating against Muslims.” Raymond Offensheiser, the president of Oxfam America, said the order would harm families around the world who are threatened by authoritarian governments.

The Times also observed the "irony" that the order issued on International Holocaust Remembrance.

I don't often understand irony. But, with that said, 1. I didn't think Hitler and the Nazis were addressing immigration and 2. Aren't the only people actively pushing for extermination of Jews and the destruction of Israel, Radical Muslims?

I believe it is the Presidents legal authority to ban (sic) entry of *any* individual or group that presents a threat to national security.

It's notable that this omission is prevalent in the press. Used to generate an outrage against The President.

While often these news reports - if you can call them that - don't out and out lie regularly, it is the omissions which are the real lies, that they do on a very regular basis. As well as crouching commentary in such 'reports' as facts, coaching the reader to react in the same way.

DJT is shining his light on the Saudi Arabian "Religion" that commands all people surrender to it and Sharia Rule or die, and specifically it requires all members to hunt down and exterminate Jews.

But this is another Trump Family conflict of interest, because The Heretic Trump Family is infested with Jews. The Dems will be forced to promote Keith Ellison as their Party Chairman and fight for death to the Jews and the Christians.

Obama's warning was true. Anyone daring to call out Islamic Jihadists is responsible for revealing that they hate us. It has worked that way every time since the Franks started it near Paris in 732 AD.

First, the notation of 9/11 attackers being Saudis is a bit of mis-direction. Threats are different today, ISIS vs. Al Queda. It is also a mis-interpretation of the policy. Our ability to vet those from the named countries is almost impossible. Suspending immigration from those countries until vetting protocols are created makes perfect sense. We have ways to vet Saudi nationals, as well as some other Muslim countries based on our relationship with those countries' intelligence organizations. Hence, we can accept those from say Jordan.

Second, it continues to irritate me when other countries criticize our immigration policy. I've got news them. It doesn't matter what you think and we don't care. Try freely crossing from Guatemala or Honduras to Mexico. Mexico wants one way secure borders. Try putting a plane full of Somalis to Japan or China and see what happens when they arrive.

Regardless of what any MSM article, the majority of Americans have no problem with this policy. Some just won't say it out loud.

"At the outset we wish to point out that an alien who seeks admission to this country may not do so under any claim of right. Admission of aliens to the United States is a privilege granted by the sovereign United States Government. Such privilege is granted to an alien only upon such terms as the United States shall prescribe." - U. S. Supreme Court, In United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 537 (1950)

50 years ago, liberals put forth the idea of the American Melting Pot: namely, that any foreign person, group or culture (not just the English, Irish or German) could come to America, adopt its values and assimilate into it. Hence, the Somali cab driver of New York was born.

I bought it then, I buy it now.

But the Left did a "bait & switch". They want all foreigners to come, remain factionalized, not assimilate, retain their ethnic identities, and absorb government benefits - as long as they vote Democrat.

This bad policy becomes a fatally toxic policy if you allow un-assimilated Muslims and radical Islamic terrorists into the mix.

Most normal Americans understand this, except the Left and their political patrons.

I'm sure that the ACLU and related groups will bring lawsuits against it.

Their argument, of course, will be "disparate impact": Any law that ends up hurting one minority group more than another is discriminatory, even if that wasn't the law's intent.

The issue is whether it's unconstitutional to discriminate against people who aren't on American soil yet. I very much doubt it. If they're still in another country, seeking to come to America, I don't see how American antidiscrimination laws can apply to them. Our laws don't extend over the whole world (fortunately).

The whole purpose of Cheney siting Camp X-Ray in Gitmo was to get around habeas corpus and the Bill of Rights. Since Guantanamo Bay isn't US territory (it's leased from Cuba), the Constitution doesn't apply to inmates there.

The United States Code allows for the United States to take religion into account in determining admission into this country. Lawyer John Hinderaker at Power Line covered the issue. Moreover we have no DUTY to allow a soul into this country. Any admission is purely voluntary and a matter of grace.

Evidently, Trump is not "Islamophobic" enough for his critics?That's one way to look at it. Another way might be that they think he's not being smart about it. And that Saudi Arabia continues to catch breaks.

The headline for this column—The U.S. Bars Christian, Not Muslim, Refugees From Syria—will strike many readers as ridiculous.

But the numbers tell a different story: The United States has accepted 10,801 Syrian refugees, of whom 56 are Christian. Not 56 percent; 56 total, out of 10,801. That is to say, one-half of 1 percent.

The BBC says that 10 percent of all Syrians are Christian, which would mean 2.2 million Christians. It is quite obvious, and President Barack Obama and Secretary John Kerry have acknowledged it, that Middle Eastern Christians are an especially persecuted group.

So how is it that one-half of 1 percent of the Syrian refugees we’ve admitted are Christian, or 56, instead of about 1,000 out of 10,801—or far more, given that they certainly meet the legal definition?

The definition: someone who “is located outside of the United States; is of special humanitarian concern to the United States; demonstrates that they were persecuted or fear persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.”

Somewhere between a half million and a million Syrian Christians have fled Syria, and the United States has accepted 56. Why?

“This is de facto discrimination and a gross injustice,” Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, told Fox News. Fox notes another theory: The United States takes refugee referrals from the U.N. refugee camps in Jordan, and there are no Christians there.

Here’s the Fox excerpt:

Experts say another reason for the lack of Christians in the makeup of the refugees is the makeup of the camps. Christians in the main United Nations refugee camp in Jordan are subject to persecution, they say, and so flee the camps, meaning they are not included in the refugees referred to the U.S. by the U.N.

“The Christians don’t reside in those camps because it is too dangerous,” Shea said. “They are preyed upon by other residents from the Sunni community, and there is infiltration by ISIS and criminal gangs.”

“They are raped, abducted into slavery and they are abducted for ransom. It is extremely dangerous; there is not a single Christian in the Jordanian camps for Syrian refugees,” Shea said.

The solution would be to allow Christians, and other religious minorities, to apply directly for refugee status, not through the U.N. U.S. Senator Tom Cotton has introduced legislation doing just that.

Christian refugees are much more easily vetted as the religious communities in those countries are quite compact due to external persecution.

We had something like this with Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s after South Vietnam fell. Whole communities including the doctors reaffiliated in Orange County. I was on the admissions committee of the medical association. We interviewed a lot of Vietnamese doctors. The North would not provide records of things like graduation so the faculties reformed in exile and California granted degrees based on the faculty recollections. Many of those doctors had the same patients they had had in Vietnam.

The Neville Chamberlain government welcomed about 50,000 German Jewish refugees before the war. The Chamberlain government was criticized because it favored Jewish refugees from middle class backgrounds. FDR's government, by way of contrast, accepted only about 500 refugees, and these mostly with show business or art world connections. The FDR government is rarely criticized for this. Instead the blame is leveled against the American public. They were too anti-Semitic to allow more refugees. Oh, fuck off. The New Deal liberals were willing to face down public opinion on any number of issues. On Holocaust Remembrance Day we should take a moment to pause and reflect on what a perfect shit FDR was when it came to Jewish refugees.

Well, we're in the thick of it now. I was reading some European newspapers, and although very critical editorial voices may be displayed in some of the articles, and generally critical "authorities" are prominently featured in at least one article, the individuals commenting on those articles are skewing heavily to the 'Where can we get some of this in our country?'

So there is a popular disconnect in Europe. What is officially appalling is inspiring and thrilling to a substantial segment of the European voters.

It is not and has never been so much the terrorism as the Islam-ist (sharia adherent) immigrants that are the problem. A person who adheres to sharia is not comfortable with, and cannot really support, the western political/legal system.

So if you import substantial numbers of immigrants who believe in sharia, they will form a nucleus within which potential terrorists will be harbored and supported until they do damage. There's a very difficult position for us.

Curious George said..."HT said...Madeline Allbright, on the other hand, plans to "register" as Muslim.

If there is a registry of Muslims. This is about immigration bans. Are you mixing the two on purpose?"

He's paraphrasing what Albright said in a tweet. Here it is in full:

Madeleine Albright ✔ @madeleineI was raised Catholic, became Episcopalian & found out later my family was Jewish. I stand ready to register as Muslim in #solidarity.12:18 PM - 25 Jan 20171/28/17, 8:09 AM

So really no identity means much to her anyway, except Democrat. I suppose she wouldn't convert from that.

Isn't she the one who said half a million dead Iraqi children was a good deal? Maybe we could deport her to Iraq instead of Syria. Obama said everything was fine there.

And look at CAIR claiming that this is religious discrimination - this is the same organization that is lobbying our government to prohibit blasphemy against the Koran and Mohammed. CAIR is opposed to our Constitution. They are not explicitly violently opposed to it, but they are opposed to it.

We are now seeing the slow destruction of open societies in majority Muslim countries that have adopted these blasphemy laws - all of which seem to have been former British colonies with the transpant of common law and representational government. It cannot survive the blasphemy law provisions. Traditional Koranic Islam is not just a religon, but a political system that is entirely incompatible with British Common Law.

I think the only possible way out of this dilemma is to focus on the law question - can an immigrant affirm that he/she will live under and support the Constitution? The Constitution gives perfect freedom to an individual to live a life that's largely sharia-compliant, although when a caliphate is declared (such as ISIS), the Koranic mandate is to support it against this country.

Chesterton wrote about this very well long before this question arose. I'll have to see if I can find his essay. It amounted to the idea that the US is founded on a creed, although it is not a religious creed. I remember thinking that he was right.

We don't let in neo-Nazis, because their ideology is too much in conflict with ours. We haven't let in Communists who espouse loyalty to ideas that conflict too much with ours. The unhappy reality we have been trying to evade for so long is that we now have the same ideological conflict with at least a third of the adherents of a major world religion.

In FDR's time the Episcopalians of his Ruling Class and the KKK assholes in his Democrat solid south were both anti-Semites. But he did arrange an honest Scots -Irish man from a Southern Baptist heritage to become our next President after his imminent death.

Truman was an out and proud Jew Lover, based on Scripture and his personal friendships. And like DJT, Truman was not afraid of a fight with the Anti-Semites no matter how much Oil they controlled.

This business prompted me to actually go read Mr Trump's Holocaust Remembrance statement. Wasn't much impressed. I don't have a problem with not explicitly mentioning the Jewish victims since it is self-evidently them at the heart of the thing but this, "... (i)n the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good. Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world" seems worthy of the teen-aged prize winner of the 4H Club speech contest. On the other hand, that is evidently the language Mr Trump has available to articulate his thoughts, so perhaps he actually wrote the text; I guess I will just have to get used to it.

Meanwhile, on CNN last night, in the context of a report on "refugees" from Syria and other Middle East nations, they told viewers that Trump's mention of disparate treatment against Christians was a lie, reporting that according to the numbers of refugees worldwide -- remember this was a discussion specifically about the Middle East -- about 40 percent were Christian and Muslims only about 60 percent.

I had tuned in to see if they would mention the March for Life, but at that point I said, "to hell with this," and turned to another station.

FDR was indeed a perfect shit re Jews.The USG even blocked its client states and areas where it had influence from accepting Jewish refugees.The Philippines for instance, had to lobby hard to get the US administration to permit it to accept Jews, the US State Department claiming that it was an aspect of foreign policy that the US still controlled under the Commonwealth arrangement. Oddly enough, this did not seem to extend to Philippine Commonwealth immigration laws concerning any other peoples, such as Chinese or Japanese or Spaniards. The Roosevelt administration really did have it in for Jews.

I'm intrigued by the implication from The NY Times that Trump's order doesn't go far enough.

Flynn and Mattis believe that political Islam -- those who aren't violent themselves but are against women's rights and gay rights and want strict adherence to Muslim beliefs and practices -- is incompatible with American society. Mattis believes we need a national conversation on Thur issue of political Islam and whether the US should admit these adherents to the US.

This is One of the worst decisions by a president since FDR locked up Japanese Americans. It goes against everything America stands for. People are now being detained at airports for simply being Iraqi. It makes absolutely no sense - especially because it targets random countries and ignores ones that actually produced terrorists in America. God help us.

So, Matt, done calling the President a liar? Done telling us that he just said all that stuff to get elected? That he will be powerless to shape events?

Google telling all their affected peeps to run home to the USA, how sweet. How many coders from Yemen can there be? Guess they'll have to get with telecommuting now.

If these are not enough countries to target, fellas, President Trump can add more. His pen has plenty of ink.

That said, Farmer, anybody, any countries of groups, you DO want to let in? We'll leave Israel out of it. Western Europe? The Baltics? I recommend taking it easy on Estonia. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said he never met a bad Estonian and that has been my experience as well.

Obama's premature evacuation and social justice adventurism have secured his legacy.

We should have continued to work with the Iraqis to prevent the rise of Islamic terrorism. We should have avoided extrajudicial wars, coups, and baby trials from Benghazi to Aleppo to Kiev. We should have focused on emigration reform, not immigration reform including refugee crises. It's unfortunate that the Soviets... I mean, Russians, will not voluntarily replace the Jews as canaries in the mine. They would have made viable sacrificial babies.

I don't think this is a bad thing. I think it deserves criticism, but when has immigration policy ever been "perfect?" What would that even mean? These countries in Europe do need a lesson, and if they want to look to us, that's fine. I don't like it; I hate the idea of planes arriving with refugees being turned back. But Trump is creating the perfect wedge by privileging the persecuted. This is the flip side of the policy of engaging nonviolent Muslims to take on their pernicious scriptures and co-religionists. To be clear, I don't like it, I'm sure it goes further than it needs to, and it's highlighting a problem that's really not as much an issue for us as it was when a certain someone ignored intelligence reports and red about pet goats while watching planes crash into buildings. But if he wants to make some more, actual, intelligent non-partisan progress on other issues then I'm happy to allow for it. Sure, Trump is crude and has a dangerous tendency to focus to abstraction on the minor molehills. But we owe nothing to these countries - (neither to S.A., either, what about that?) - and as long as he can get results out of this, or with his other cocksure priorities, then I'm fine with a wait-and-see approach.

I actually like the text of this. Especially the first part: "Purpose." Is it a misplaced focus, a la the Japanese internment? Who knows. Only time will tell. But Islam is a special problem. He got his lawyers to draft it well and I can't see anything in the preamble that strikes me as unconstitutional. America respects people's individual liberties. It has no obligation however to "make nice" to barbarians cut from the same cloth as those who were among the first to aggress against us an independent nation in 1784. They have been at war with us from the beginning, as they have been with almost everybody else.

This is not religious persecution. Are we doing anything to prevent them from seeking asylum in our client state of Saudi Arabia, under the aegis of the Custodians of the Two Sacred Mosques? I don't think so. If Islam is such a rational, self-interested religious enterprise, perhaps the vanguards of the faith can put their money where their well-heeled mouths are and help solve the problem that all the power in the region that we've allowed them to acquire has put them in the rather unique position to fix.

Trump supporters would argue that disrupting a terrorist cell by banning entry of its members, or keeping out a mass shooter, hijacker, assassin, bomber or poisoner of reservoirs outweighs the inconvenience to an Iranian director, Iraqi students, or Syrian refugees.

Democrats, lefties, Islamists, SJWs, terrorists and their enablers among the mediaswine would evidently disagree.

the president and bannon are dopes... they are playing right into the extremist's playbook...war and recession by the end of the year... i know you guys are all happy about this but i don't see the realpolitik of it all.. this is a call to arms to the radical followers of Allah... good luck to all of you, you are about to find out how bad things can get... this is what we get when a know it all, egotistical, narcissists are elevated to the highest levels of power.. trump knows nuclear and he's not afraid to use it.. is this next step? the end game? bomb them and then steal the oil?

Red, there was a good vetting process already in place... i'm just saying that this kind of idiocy incites muslim activists who were on the sidelines to join in... best recruiting tool EVER other than actually bombing mecca ... And my reference to the oil was reiterating what trump said we should have done when we attacked iraq... Bad Lt... what is the end game?... has this been thought out any better than the idea that mexicans will pay for the wall?... not wait we impose a tariff on mexican products... these guys are dopes... great headlines and tweets but not much thought behind this other than if plays to a certain segment of our society...

That said, Farmer, anybody, any countries of groups, you DO want to let in?

For now, no. I am for a complete moratorium on all immigration for at least the next 10 years. After that, I'd like to see something like the 1924 Immigration Act. Policies designed to pressure current illegals to return to their countries of origin would be good, too.

BTW, just learned that the countries listed are part of the Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, passed during the Obama administration, which appears to make Trump's EO entirely legal (though it would be helpful if an objective immigration legal eagle opined on this.)

as a right to life advocate i would hope you are saying that this edict targets the wrong people... the countries targeted in this have nothing to do with terrorism against the US or its allies in the west... as you probably well know the terrorists from 9/11 came from countries that are exempt from this order.. interestingly enough, countries with trump investments!so who's zooming who?

it does include green card holders and this does not follow Obama's policy...the policy that this replaces was not a ban on travel to the US... people from these countries need to get a visa in person from the US embassy... so there is a major difference... and like i said before interestingly there are no trump holdings in these countries... watch your wallets everyone...

One guy on TV Facetiming from Cairo said he had cooperated with US Forces in Iraq. I will say that terps should get a break, but hadn't Obama been crapping on terps for years and nobody cared? Anyway individuals who are of value to the United States can be admitted on a case-by-case basis.

GWash, you should consider growing up and stop "following the money." It's really not sophisticated political analysis. President Trump is simply not trying to enrich himself.

By the way you'll notice that all the amusement and contempt directed by foreigners towards President Trump is gone. People are taking him very seriously now. Think people at the UN took Amb. Haley seriously today? People now are being polite and respectful even as they object, like that Paki chick who got Nobeled for being shot. Now was that so hard?

It was easy to get in through Saudi at the time. Religious zealotry covers the whole region. There is stronger vetting from the organized states. The ones being shut down, besides Iran who hates us, vary from disorganized to chaotic. They can't be trusted at this time.

Contrary to shitlib belief, Lazarus was not one of the Founding Fathers, nor is her doggerel part of the Constitution. The French did not send "Liberty Enlightening the World" to be set up as "The Colossus of Open Borders".

If she had just advocated for women's education, but not been shot, she probably wouldn't have won the Nobel. So, it seemed pertinent.

Why would I hate her? She is a victim of Islam.

That said, I understand from vets that we made the going a lot harder for ourselves in Afghanistan by trying to assert Western values such as educating women. Other Western values which we tried to assert, such as not raping little boys, were also a problem. Not a great scene out there.

I should tell you that I'm not into symbolism and emotional appeals. That seems to be your thing so it's possible that we won't see eye-to-eye much.

Blogger Christopher Souza said..."There're also two hundred other countries in the world for them to go to. Some of them within walking distance. With co-religionists and oil money."

Inspiring. Why don't we inscribe that on the Statue of Liberty?1/29/17, 11:57 AM

See, like this. I'd rather solve the problem than inspire you.

Big part of solving the problem is, well, solving the problem, rather than helping people run away from the problem. Keeping them in the region close to home, among what should be friends, seems only logical. That said, if you wanted to clean out all the Palestinians from Israel and send them to say New Zealand or Tierra del Fuego, that would probably be a good idea.

But in my opinion if you wanted to stop the war in Syria, take all these guys supposedly running away from the war in Syria, give them basic training, a rifle, and point them back at Syria. The women and children can stay behind somewhere safe in Turkey or KSA maybe.

And if you ask me, "what should we have done with Hitler? Take six million Jews, give the men Garand rifles, point them back at Berlin?" My answer would be oh God yes, please oh please oh please. In fact if somebody could have airdropped say 5000 rifles and ammunition into the Warsaw Ghetto, it would have never fallen.